


like living in a world with no air

by MissSugarPlum



Series: you're just a line in a song [7]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: (shh just go with it), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not beta-read, Pre-Slash, Tumblr Prompt, barry has asthma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2015-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-06 19:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5428349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSugarPlum/pseuds/MissSugarPlum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ironic thing is, Barry has asthma.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like living in a world with no air

**Author's Note:**

> Longer one today, from one of the very very first prompts I got - an anon prompted "asthma attack," and this was so hard because I know literally NOTHING about asthma. So it ended up taking a while (sorry again, anon, whoever you are!), but I am ultimately super pleased with the result.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> (Title from Jordin Sparks's No Air, because I am friggin' hilarious, alright?)

The ironic thing is, Barry has asthma.

 

They find out when he’s small, maybe six or seven, when he can’t stop coughing through the night, has trouble breathing and often waking up more tired than when he went to sleep. His father, ever the practical doctor, takes him to get checked out right away, and after they find out, his mother always talks him down from his panic when his chest starts to seize.

 

He gets used to the attacks, whether they come day or night, he gets used to carrying an inhaler around everywhere he goes, he gets used to being teased by the other kids at school because he’s different, because he has a very real, very obvious weakness. (More than once, he has to leave early because someone thinks it’d be a great idea to play keep-away with his inhaler while he has an attack, and by the third time his mother has to pick him up from the nurse’s office at school, an unholy terror has been raised—there are threats of lawsuits, among a host of other things, including a school-wide assembly on the dangers of bullying and kids with health deficiencies, and after that no one ever tries to keep his inhaler away from him again. Nora Allen is the sweetest woman, except when her baby boy is being mistreated.)

 

The symptoms start to lessen the further he gets into adolescence, and though he knows he’ll never truly be rid of the asthma, that the symptoms will most likely come back worse when he’s an adult, he thanks his lucky stars that for now, just entering high school, he seems to have outgrown it.

 

Then he gets struck by lightning, becomes the Flash, and by the time he turns twenty-six and the most he has to deal with is the very rare cough, he assumes his cellular regeneration has taken care of the disease.

 

In hindsight, he should know better. He knows what they say about people who assume, after all.

 

-x-

 

The tightening in his chest has been gnawing at him all day, and though at first he thinks it has something to do with the hollow feeling in his gut he’s had all week, ever since Leonard Snart somehow escaped from prison, by the time evening hits and the pressure only gets worse, he knows what it is.

 

Cisco and Caitlin are tense and highly alert, of course knowing Barry’s medical history, but there’s not a lot they can do when an alert comes through that someone matching Captain Cold’s description has been spotted downtown. Barry really has no choice but to zip away, and Caitlin and Cisco stare after him, worrying about the way Barry kept rubbing at his chest.

 

He finds Snart easily—the man isn’t even attempting to hide, leaning against the wall of a tiny diner, eyes fixed on the bank across the street, cold gun balanced across the set of his shoulders.

 

“Bust out of Iron Heights, and the first thing you do is case out a bank?”

 

Snart smirks, eyes not wavering from their narrow stare on the building in front of him. “Some things don’t change, Barry, no matter how much we might wish they do.”

 

“What exactly are you playing at, Snart?”

 

Snart opens his mouth to answer, but pauses as a rough bout of coughs wracks through Barry, leaving him gasping and weak in the knees.

 

“Feeling a bit under the weather?” Barry can hear the smirk in his voice without needing to look up to confirm it. “Not about to catch cold, are you?”

 

Well, with an opening like that… “I’m hoping to,” Barry tries to say, but he gets only halfway through his sentence before a shudder ripples through him at lightning speed and he can _feel_ his throat constricting, his lungs not getting enough air. Over the comms in his ear, he can hear Cisco shouting in alarm.

 

“Barry?”

 

He can hear the slight concern coloring Snart’s voice, and if he could talk around his gasping breaths, he would probably tease him for it. As it is, though, he can barely find room to breathe—he can feel a cold sweat start to gather at his temples, and his fingers start tingling as his vision starts to go fuzzy.

 

A sudden grip on his arms brings his head up, and he focuses on Snart, face much closer than it was a moment ago, light blue eyes wide and aghast upon Barry’s face.

 

“Barry. Here. Focus here.”

 

He keeps his eyes on Snart’s unblinking ones, and though he still can’t catch his breath, Snart’s gaze grounds him and helps the panic ebb, just a little.

 

“Breathe with me, Barry, that’s it. In, through your nose now, good. Hold it… hold it… let it out, slowly, out through your mouth, there we go. Again.”

 

Barry breathes with him again, and it calms him more, Snart’s low, steady voice doling out instructions. The rapid pace of his breathing slows somewhat, though each inhale still isn’t enough, still sends a jagged knife’s edge ripping through his chest, and he knows from extensive experience that if he doesn’t get to his inhaler soon, there’s no option other than hospitalization.

 

“Need… STAR Labs,” he gasps out, and if he was in his right frame of mind, he’d be a little perturbed by the fact that Snart hasn’t blinked once, has kept his gaze squarely on Barry, like he’s perhaps worried that Barry might disappear if he takes his eyes off him for even a moment.

 

“They can help you there?”

 

“As-as-asthma,” he chokes out. “Need—need my inha-ha-haler.”

 

Snart’s eyebrows quirk up almost imperceptibly, the tiniest sign of bemusement, as if the fact that the Flash is plagued by something as banal as asthma is inconceivable to him. He shakes the thought away, pushing up from his crouch and bringing Barry with him, hands still holding on to Barry firmly.

 

“My car is just around the corner,” he says lowly, long fingers flexing against Barry’s biceps. “Can you make it that far?”

 

Barry nods spastically, coughing violently once more, hands spasming between vibrating and merely shaking so hard his very bones grind together and _ache_.

 

“Let’s go.”

 

Snart is gentle with him as he leads him the very short distance to his car, his hand soft but unyielding on Barry’s elbow, murmuring inane platitudes to him the entire way, and Barry can’t help but lean into him, take some measure of comfort from the warmth of him, especially when it’s so freely offered.

 

He doesn’t remember much, if any, of the drive to STAR Labs—he figures he blacked out, probably, from the lack of oxygen flow to his brain. But when he comes to on the very familiar bed, hooked up to very familiar machines, with two very familiar worried faces looking down at him with relief in their eyes, he finds he’s not very surprised to find his hand hanging off the bed, both of Leonard Snart’s wrapped around it, and the small smile he receives from Captain Cold warms him up through to his core, makes him feel like he’ll be able to breathe easily as long as it’s aimed at him always.

 

**Author's Note:**

> (Everything asthma-related is information I got from WebMD, so if it's completely inaccurate... I tried?)
> 
> Originally on [tumblr](http://that-pumpkinspicewhitegirl.tumblr.com/post/134247338398/if-youre-still-taking-prompts-coldflash-letter).


End file.
